“You can’t stop the signal.” The quote is from the popular sci-fi movie Serenity in reference to information being made public and kept public. The quote has become a battle cry for First and Second Amendment supporters who have rallied around new 3D printed gun technology.

The State Department has famously shut down the files for the Liberator 3D pistol hosted by Defense Distributed, the Texas based company behind the plans. However, it was far too late. The files were downloaded over 100,000 times from that website alone and have since been downloaded millions of times across various sources on the net. There was even at least one example of a Liberator being produced the extremely anti gun UK.

It seems the State Department isn’t the only government agency which has their eye on 3D gun printing. According to Fox News, they have obtained an internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) memo that outline the agencies concerns about the the new technology.

“Magnetometers may fail to detect the Liberator, depending on device sensitivity. Though it is prohibited by federal law, manufacturers may deliberately omit the unnecessary metal insert, leaving only a small nail and ammunition as the sole metal component. Future designs could further reduce or eliminate metal entirely.

Here is one more quote from the article:

“Even if the practice is prohibited by new legislation, online distribution of these digital files will be as difficult to control as any other illegally traded music, movie or software files.”